July 03, 2016

At a real estate event that I attended this week on creative workspaces, property developers focused upon ‘the creative classes’, ‘millennials’, the value of collaborative work-spaces and their well-designed bike racks.

As ever, the sales pitch was that these places express the power of ‘we’ and are havens for creativity, co-design and co-everything for a new post-industrial, post-work, well-being-centered generation.

Post-Brexit, will this form of workspace start to feel like a form of gated community, an over-curated place capable of generating an address but not a genuine sense of belonging?

In the Brexit vote, densely populated urban areas in the UK with a lot of young people, such as Hackney and Islington in London, voted overwhelmingly to remain in the European Union.

Areas where more residents had higher education skewed sharply to Remain, while areas where a more had no formal qualifications were slightly more likely to vote Leave.

The vote expressed divisions and victory for Leave articulated a cosmopolitanism that many within the UK don’t like, or want.

Put another way, swathes of fellow citizens are just not in step with cultures of rolled-up jeans, Tumblr times — or multiculturalism.

So will creative, educated communities in our cities now start to notice an elitism, feel uncomfortable about it and change their ways and habits?

Will global elites in our cities now get down and dirty with the rest?

Taste and fashion err towards more inclusion and localism?

Will the politically-corect ‘right-on’ tag that has long besmirched the idea of inclusion now disappear?

And what might all this mean to the kinds of places that we support, create and grow for ourselves, and that in so many ways are a reflection of our hopes, dreams and self-identity?

It feels as if the new moral and economic climate — and an associated ‘tech drain’ that will play through the Telecommunications, Media and Technology market — will mean that place-making will be forced to open up to a new, more diverse set of users.

Landlords will have to worry more about the challenges presented by less free movement of labour, such as a low levels of productivity and skills, and decrease in external finance for enterprise, such as for corporate R & D.

The connected-ness between ‘creative communities’, elites and the places that they inhabit with other communities will need to change.

To my mind, it is entrepreneurialism, intergenerational relations, and grassroots localism that will hold the clue.

June 17, 2016

A recent review in the New York Times drew attention to how eminent neuroscientist Michael S. Gazzaniga has shifted his ideas on the brain, from ‘left/right thinking’ to ‘multiple minds’, from ‘national planning’ to ‘local gossip’.

For those interested in growing prosperity, such a shift in thinking has relevance and meaning, however esoteric the source.

We have just come to the end of our second year of operating Wild Blue Cohort, a business angel investment network in central London, England and the value of the local to us is clear – and by the way, it’s nothing to do with the whispers, butterfly touches or backward bigotry of the hill village!

The barriers to entry and success of enterprise in London are high. Many people believe that the vitality of their neighbourhood is inextricably linked to the quality and incidence of local entrepreneurship. In their ranks are individuals with immense experience of creating and managing successful enterprise, and some have an appetite for private investment. Centred on West London in particular, Wild Blue meets the needs of one with the skill and intent of the other.

Since we started Wild Blue, over 600 companies have approached the investor network for finance – and roughly one third have been enterprises with a local link. Members have made eleven investments to date, valued at just under £700,000. Two of those investments have followed on from investments by well-known venture capital firms, who have followed on from our members’ initial interest. Wild Blue has invested between £10,000 – £225,000 in companies ~ two deals syndicates of eight and six individuals.

The quality, resonance and traction of what Wild Blue is doing is reinforced by co-investment by external organisations. To start up, we benefitted greatly from £150,000 in grant finance from the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea and Westway Trust. We have since ‘circled’ a further, far larger sum to support the delivery of a new co-working space in Holland Park, which will be managed and delivered in partnership with The Collective property company.

Historically, the entrepreneurial economy of West London has centred almost exclusively upon food, fashion, personal services, the media and high-end creative industries. Investments to date by members of Wild Blue have expanded that portfolio: into on-demand services for senior care and legal advice to SMEs, mobile consumer and B2B software applications, food subscription services and a website offering food recipes.

Of course, global and national economic phenomena provide a key framework for all of this: be it the decreasing number of companies joining the public markets, low interest rates, tax incentives for investment in enterprise or innovation strategy.

But also there is a psychological dimension to it all. The swelling ranks of the anti-establishment, rise of online social media and popularity of multi-platform lifestyle brands speak to an increasing need for people to find common cause and belong.

Yes, our Wild Blue network is growing because of the outstanding quality of entrepreneurs out there that we find, or find us. But also we emphasise the involvement of members in due diligence and screening of businesses, their further mentoring and the local link and logic of companies. This offers members the prospect of an exciting, profitable personal investment that also supports the world in which they live and work.

As a syndicate of “angels” based in London, Wild Blue Cohort focuses on investing in early stage food, fintech, B2B and B2C enterprise, media, real estate, healthcare and education companies led by experienced managers and targeting big market opportunities. Serial entrepreneur and investor, David Barrie, the Founder and CEO of WBC, answered our questions about himself, the firm, its investment strategy and much more.

FinSMEs: Hi David, first, can you tell us a bit more about you? David: I have founded and delivered several ventures that have been credited with raising £500m+ of new investment through public-private partnerships. These ventures include projects in the U.K., Russia, Eastern Europe and Canada; progressive enterprises such as The People’s Supermarket, London. My background is in media production. I have produced and directed television for 20yrs+, after working as a producer of financial programmes at the BBC and a research analyst in mergers and acquisitions for a major consulting firm.

FinSMEs: You have an Investment Director at Wild Blue Cohort – tell us more about her. David: Deepali Nangia is Investment Director at Wild Blue. She started her career as an analyst on Wall Street and then spent several years in the investment divisions of GE and MMC (now Stonepoint Capital) focusing on financial services and financial tech. In these roles, she evaluated many “balance sheet”, outsourcing and technology plays; followed by ops roles at corporates in New York, London, Hong Kong and India.

FinSMEs: Let’s speak about Wild Blue Cohort. Why did you come up with the idea of creating it? David: Entrepreneurs need finance. Investors want fast growth prospects and some like to be close to the companies that they invest in, especially if they have a role in its management. West London is full of immense commercial and corporate talent and expertise and many residents are private investors. What’s more, many people who live in West London would like to see a more vital, entrepreneurial, diverse local economy. A locally based angel investment network seemed to address all of these needs.

FinSMEs: How does it work? David: We promote opportunities to our members after direct contact from entrepreneurs or deal partners, such as accelerators, incubators, investment firms and our members. Wild Blue promote enterprises to members through quarterly pitching events and off-cycle. Members carry out their own due diligence. Members invest either alone or in syndicate.

FinSMEs: Which is the investment strategy? David: Our members are excited by companies led by outstanding individuals and with robust plans to scale up and grow. Wild Blue members tend to seek opportunities that require up to £1m in equity finance at reasonable valuations, with priority given to enterprises eligible for EIS or SEIS tax relief. Companies are screened for several indicators, with priority given to growth and quality of management but also the value of future growth to the local West London economy. We are sector-agnostic but members have very extensive experience in early stage and fast growth businesses and have expertise in food, fintech, B2B and B2C enterprise, media, real estate, healthcare and education.

FinSMEs: Personally speaking, what do (and what don’t) you like to see in startup founders? David: Investment Director Deepali Nangia and me like to see leaders, honest and direct people, hard working and collaborative traits and of course track record – important but not essential. Differentiation and a long-term vision are important. I like the investor Saul Klein’s view that an inspirational entrepreneur is the one who can describe what the view looks like behind them, after a 20yr journey to success.

FinSMEs: Who is in the portfolio? David: Wild Blue members have invested in eight firms to date. Plentific – which provides online support for property transactions; HomeTouch – an on-demand market place for hiring carers started by a doctor trained at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital; Loyal zoo – an app for keeping your various loyalty points in one place; Simplycook – which provides its customers with restaurant-quality recipes and ingredients; Seeing – a crowd-sourced video content website started by a graduate of Chelsea School of Art; Great British Chefs – a popular website offering recipe inspiration, expert-cooking guides and the latest chef and restaurant news; Lexoo – an online marketplace for legal advice, andTrint – a workflow software company.

FinSMEs: Is London becoming startup friendly? David:The culture of business in London is very startup friendly but the ‘barriers’ to entry are high. It is very expensive to base your business in London and hire local talent. The motivation of many members of Wild Blue Cohort is to use local money to support local enterprise. Also we are planning to launch towards the end of 2016/early 2017 an unique co-working space that will try to make it easier and more affordable to start and grow a business in West London.

FinSMEs: Personally, which tech trend do you follow? David: I follow all tech trends – a junkie for TechCrunch, Crunchbase and many newsletters.

May 19, 2016

As ‘super gentrification’ advances in London, people worry increasingly about the loss of neighbourhood and vitality of community.

‘Don’t-rock-the-boat urbanism’ is in part to blame: minimalist marble slabs to sit on, featureless expanses of manicured grass, parades of shops selling the same thing, bans on skateboarding and smoking, and musak not birdsong.

This landscape Fit for Beige follows on from globalisation, the rise of luxury shopping, a cult of well-being and lack of diversity of housing provision.

Its architecture looks nice and chic off-plan in a hotel presentation and it is friendly on the balance sheet too, promising lower maintenance costs and outsourcing human interaction and incident to smartphones.

Problem is that the arrival of ‘Bland-ville’ expresses and induces a loss of community and increasingly consigns public life to the pages of Facebook.

To turn it around, real estate developers, urban planners and innovators have tended to turn to enabling things that bring instant brightness and empathy to a place: food events, play space, art objects, independent and pop-up retail.

Such ‘interventions’ are great – and I’ve created a few. But what is more sustainable, ambitious, and can actually change the climate and destiny of a place is to support and develop communities, relationships and markets – and that demands a more strategic response.

Developer Cathedral Group (now u+i) has entered into partnership with Brunel University and others and turned a section of a former record factory in Hayes, Middlesex, into The Central Research Laboratory - a ‘lab space’ for design-led hardware companies.

Strategies for effective urban development often involve canvassing, co-opting and engaging with local opinion. These new ventures demand engagement of a different order.

They seek to build new cities within a city. They birth new communities of entrepreneurs and commerce through partnership. They involve people other than the unusual suspects - be they firms in property technology, small-scale manufacturers or private investors. Their ‘media’ is entrepreneurship, supporting, nurturing and seeking profit, and they spawn Happy Hours, dance parties, rooftop yoga, food halls and many other forms of co-locating enterprise.

The super-gentrification of our cities looks anti-social in comparison. Traditional consultation starts to look like it is about winning minds not market share. Pop-up animation looks like entertainment and brand marketing, rather than a pre-condition for transformative change.

In his new book The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur's Vision for the Future,Steve Case, the co-founder of America Online, argues for three waves of modern technological change. The First Wave was the arrival of the Internet. The Second: using it for search and social networking. In the future, entrepreneurs will use tech to create the ‘Third Wave’ and transform major “real world” sectors like health, education, transportation, energy, and food. Iconic entrepreneurs will be born from partnerships, firms of different sizes, networks created by innovators and new communities.

Diverse experiences in cities are becoming harder to find. Blandness is taking over. To counter it will require transformative change, and some of that will be delivered by real estate making new, unusual partnerships and through them, inventing new, unusual communities.

May 06, 2015

In a recent book review in the New York Times, Amanda Schaffer drew attention to how eminent neuroscientist Michael S. Gazzaniga has shifted his ideas on the brain from the duality of “left/right thinking” to “multiple minds”, from the value of “national planning” to “local gossip”.

In recent years, products, services, strategy and management have been dominated by dualities of Cathedral and bazaar, of “top down” and “bottom up” strategies and actions. There is the ‘grassroots’ — and then ‘the elite’. There are activists — then the incumbents.

However, join a new social media network in the name of bottom-up empowerment — and simply add your ha’peth to a Unicorn valuation. Sign up to a grassroots sharing scheme — and help build a market for professional realtors. Attend a local community event — and find youself co-opted into a scheme that makes the neighbourhood unaffordable for your grandchildren.

One person’s ‘empowerment’ is another’s marketing strategy. Grassroots is often cited as sanctuary and salvation but then watch how easily the promise of empowerment and collectivisation can be dashed.

For those who want to drive prosperity all the way through society, Gazzaniga’s change of thinking has meaning. Its message: initiate a multiplicity of processes and value the jursidiction of the local, beyond the whispers, butterly touches or backward bigotry of the hill village.

We have just come to the end of our first year of operating a new ‘business angel’ investment network in central London, England — supported by the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea — and the value of the local, in terms of both ‘gossip’ and action is becoming clear.

Since the end of March 2014, we have built a new community of almost thirty private individuals who are interested in investing in entrepreneurs and enterprise connected to the economy of West London in general, and Kensington & Chelsea in particular.

Members of Wild Blue Cohort have invested approaching £200,000 in early-stage ventures. We’ve looked at well over 200 businesses. Investments by our members have formed part of larger rounds that companies say will generate over 25 new jobs.

When I’ve created neighbourhood renewal programmes or for-profit or non-profit ventures in the past, those initiatives which ‘take’ have tended to be those that appeal to people’s sense of self and need to belong.

It’s important to create a thing that delights, but ensure that some of it feels like old familiars.

It’s also important that initiative works different beats of daily life in a larger confederation of action: be it physical infrastructure, the local school curriculum, using waste ground as a plinth for pop-ups, or turning derelict shops into new business channels.

Our investment network in West London is just one medium devoted to collectivising people and creating value in our part of the city.

In real estate, there’s new business ‘incuabtor’ spaces coming to White City run by Imperial College London and huge new residential, retail and commercial districts in Earl’s Court, Bayswater and Paddington.

In enterprise, there’s a new cluster of creative business being cultivated by entrepreneurs Charles Dunstone and Peter Simon in Notting Dale, or new social enterprise, such as Sew Portobello or the Goldfinger Factory.

In social care and civic action, there’s new ventures such as the West London Zone, modelled on Geoffrey Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone in New York, and Westway 23, a new advocacy group against the development of ‘Portobello Village’.

Of course, national planning plays a crucial role in creating a framework for all of this to take place: be it the setting of interest rates, economies of austerity, creating incentives for fostering social business or initiating Big Dig transport infrastructure development.

But multiple centres of activity with multiple ‘minds’ also matter, especially if they assume what Gazzinga calls ‘a psychological signature’.

People often try to construct this with branding and marketing. I think that it’s more durable and sustainable to support things that connect, link and foster activities and networks — be they groups of individuals like entrepreneurs, layers of enabling provided by technology, or liquids that fill the veins of local life and grant it energy, such as private capital.

David Barrie is founder of Wild Blue Cohort, an angel investment network in West London that connects investors with entrepreneurs close to home. As a civic and social entrepreneur, his work includes co-founding The People’s Supermarket, London, large-scale neighbourhood ventures in Sheffield, Middlesbrough and Castleford, and advising urban development projects and programmes in the U.K., Canada and Russia. @davidbarrie

January 16, 2015

London looks and feels increasingly like the super prime, super bland landscape of a departure lounge.

There are the ‘Sheikh-chic’ skyscrapers. Public places with minimalist design that await the Instagram-mable diversions of passers-by. Shops which operate as showrooms for goods and services bought elsewhere. ‘In-between’ spaces ‘curated’ by marketing managers. And ‘ghost mansions’ owned by ‘buy to leave’ investors.

As goods and services are delivered increasingly to consumers via the ‘cloud’, the ultimate “placeless” place is starting to emerge.

This is a gorgeous wilderness of boutiques, upper class goddesses, quilted handbags and TV crews shooting yet another series on ‘Londongrad’.

This is a Tumblr City of lifestyle not politics, entertainment not rights, and brand strategies that masquerade as impromptu ‘pop up’.

Does this matter? Yes, if empty exclusivity is the sole condition of the post-gentrified city. Yes, if you value neighborhood and think it corroded by vacant apartments. And yes, if you identify with the centre of the city in which you live and prefer it to be something beyond a financial safe haven.

How to break the increasing monopoly of this Moncler Madness both in London and other cities around the world?

Attachment to place continues to be a profound and meaningful part of human experience; and localisation has long been a healthy retreat from a world that has tilted too far from standardisation and centralisation.

In peri- and post-gentrifying neighborhoods, we should be engendering new meaning through a multiplex of new, different forms of local social media.

And we should be making collectivisation and social inclusion at the most local level intrinsic to the business model.

Who are the key participants in this project? I think that they’re the people who are an essential energy of our cities and the lifeblood of its commerce: the entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurship oxygenates life. The bulk of the economy remains local. And as anthropologist Edmund Ladd once put it: “All our prayers in the morning, in the evening, start with the word “Here.””

Real estate, architecture and local institutions have been central to the making of distinctive physical place. Yet several things appear to now constrain their powers: globalism, short-selling to super-prime investors, marketers’ obsession with ‘the curated life’ and an insufficiently fast, fickle or mobile way of doing business that’s fit for ‘multichannel’ citizens.

In their place, I believe that entrepreneurship is both seedbed and greenhouse for a new urban distinction.

And if you’re skeptical about the ‘lure of the local’ in the age of the net, think of the success and appeal of Airbnb — a service that allows people to live as the host lives and do things like shop at the local grocery store.

In an interview with Fortune magazine, Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter, captured some of the value of local business to the ‘livability’ of cities, after the rain of post-gentrification. “If we have strong networks of people working together to build local commerce,” Dorsey said, “it can drive people to want to stay and live in these neighborhoods, and it builds a strong underpinning for the whole nation.”

However, just as visual artists need agents, entrepreneurs need devoted dealers. They need private risk capital. The challenge: how to source that risk finance, deploy it smartly and exploit the dynamism and beneficial return on that investment at the most local level.

David Barrie is founder of Wild Blue Cohort, a business angel investment network for West London, England. Follow the new, non-profit ‘locavesting’ venture at LinkedIn. Email: more@wildbluekc.com.

October 24, 2014

Viva Magazine: Capitalism has led the world into deep crisis, therefore the world is seeking solutions, alternatives. Is capitalism in its pure, individual form on the brink of extinction? And are there new models of economic organization emerging?

David Barrie: Capitalism is most definitely not on the verge of extinction. It's thriving. Just look at the recent listing of Chinese internet company Alibaba for $25bn on the New York stock exchange, the widening pursuit of profit through the ‘democratization’ of finance through digital currencies like Bitcoin, the burgeoning markets for luxury goods around the world and unprecedented rise in a new middle class across the world and their buying of lifestyle goods, services and near limitless demand for new housing. However, what you are seeing just now is a change in how people think they are valuable, how they can make more of their lives, and what makes them happy. Rich and poor people have more time on their hands. Privatization of public services means that people need to be more resourceful. The need of the technology sector to monetize engagement of the public in the Internet has led to promotion of a culture of online networking, sharing and exchange of experience. In part, I think that this is a generational thing. In part, a worry on the part of young people in their twenties of a lack of resource both for themselves, but also their peers. In part, a result of the Internet, its business model and relationship to advertising. What you’re seeing is a will to utopianism, instigated by the panic a few years back over Peak Oil and the bleak dystopia of an age of jihadism. There’s also a love in pop culture for folk, Fleetwood Mac and Hope, at a time when formal political culture seems too cynical. As a result, new models of capitalism are being invented and becoming more necessary, appealing and mainstream: be it people making money by sharing goods and services, companies granting their staff shareholdings, or entrepreneurs starting up enterprises that put a social, not just a financial value, on what they do.

V: New economies, new economic models are not based only on property and profit, but also on community, connecting and cooperation. Why is this so important? What are the benefits?

DB: Community, connecting and cooperation are important because they are valuable forms of human transaction that don’t necessarily involve cash and are gratifying in their social relations – I do wonder whether it’s an accident, by the way, that we seem to be valuing these things at a time when technology and e-commerce are turning us into a ‘cashless society’. In this new economy, power is acquired by relationships, networks and gets away from the old paradigm of “winners” and “losers”. It’s what one writer has called ‘The Power of We’. I’ve actualized this in a lot of my work: be it mobilizing communities of people in deprived towns and cities to drive change to their environment, create new markets for food that people have cultivated across a city or founding enterprises based upon community purchasing of goods or co-operative private financial investment in start-up and growth enterprise. There is a value to these new economic models but they need to be established with solid governance and a robust and clear shape and vision so that those who participate understand and respect the rules. There are plenty of democracies which have sought to introduce more equitable arrangements into their systems – such as devolving central government to local power – but failed, allowing powerful forces to dominate, marginalize, divide and rule.

V: We are witnessing the birth of new business models, new production models and usage of goods and services. What are the most effective practices in your opinion?

DB: There’s circumstantial evidence that seems to suggest that operating with values of community, connecting and cooperation are worthwhile. For thousands of years, there have been societies that have functioned effectively on people giving and exchanging goods and services with one another, rather than money. Countless online markets create value through communal connections and recommendations, markets like Ebay and Gumtree, and appear to be popular and robust. In some countries and regions, such as Spain and Emilia Romagna in Italy, co-operatives and networks of independent enterprises have worked robustly and sustainably together for many years, enabling local economies and communities to be resilient. Founded in 1973, the Park Slope Food Cooperative, a retail store in Brooklyn, New York, generates tens of millions of dollars in value and surplus revenue each year. The co-operative retail store that I co-founded in central London in 2011, The People’s Supermarket, is now five years old and supporting a strong working and shopping community. In my opinion, the most effective practices are production models based upon subscribing customers or consumers of a service, perhaps in the form of a membership. It is a way of working that instantly monetizes engagement, generates cashflow and establishes purchasers of a good or service less as customers and more as shareholders or citizens of a venture and its transactions.

V: You are a big promoter of social entrepreneurship. How would you define it and what is its core? What are the main differences between so called neoliberal entrepreneurship, which strives for high profits, and social entrepreneurship?

DB: I define social entrepreneurship as the act of leading a venture that is both financially and socially profitable. In a social enterprise, in my opinion, these objectives work together and mutually constitute profit’, whereas in the standard neoliberal order of the entrepreneurial day, it tends to be financial profit first and only. Looking at the private enterprises that my new angel investment network in London is evaluating, what is interesting is that ecommerce and social media are making private entrepreneurs intensely socially-minded just now. From a television documentary series that I made several years ago on the dying fortunes of the Vidal Sassoon chain of hair and beauty salons, private enterprise may often take a highly social and paternalistic view of its workforce and fortune. And from my work as a researcher many years ago for strategy consultants in mergers and acquisitions, large corporations may place a value upon this. However, none of this constitutes a ‘social enterprise’. Social enterprises have a different definition of profit, often a blended value of the financial and the social. As a result, they often work to eccentric business models, ‘socialize’ profit-taking and approach certain functions like marketing and sourcing very differently to the conventional, private, profit-seeking business.

V: In social entreprises, what is the main advantage of reinvesting for social effect?

DB: Many private companies reinvest their financial profits, or buy-back their shares from the stock market, so social enterprise doesn’t have a monopoly on either the effectiveness or value of this kind of behavior. Generally speaking in social enterprise, financial surplus is reinvested since a primary or principal dividend to the consumer is not a financial but a social one. So, for instance, The People’s Supermarket was a co-operative. It was a membership organization. In effect, its members made collective decisions on what the store should purchase. By reinvesting financial surplus, the venture was returning a dividend to its members by subsidizing the cost of food, enhancing the value yield and so future returns of goods and services.

V: Is social enterprise an effective, plausible way out of our current economic crisis, or safety net for society for coming crises?

Both. Social enterprise provides an opportunity to service people’s needs in a sustainable and equitable manner, but it can also provide shelter from the ravages of capitalist markets. If you’re asking whether social enterprise is in itself a route out of crisis, a systemic answer to lack of competitiveness, low productivity, poor management and speculation in capital markets, the answer is (of course) NO! In my experience, it can provide an outstanding opportunity to certain communities to the provision of certain needs – access to healthy food at affordable prices for poor and marginalized communities of people at the center of a world city, for example. However, it is very challenging to start and scale a social enterprise, and in general it demands initial public or private sector investment, and it is difficult to find sufficient growth capital to scale. New innovations are coming to address this, such as markets that specialize in trading in shares in social ventures and offer opportunities for sizeable external equity offers and IPOs. A visionary mayor or Government could aggregate and foster a social enterprise economy from a series of diverse providers of goods and services at a neighborhood level. I think you’re also making a mistake to attach social enterprise exclusively to the idea of economic crisis. It can be a strategic response to the market for a particular service. What’s more, the opportunities it exploits often link to the liberalization of markets and privatization by Government of the delivery of public services.

V: Do you believe that social entrepreneurship in long term can lower the gap between the poor majority and rich minority?

DB: I believe social enterprise can provide poorer people with greater quality of life and value return for investment of their time and energy. It can also create virtuous collectives that involve both rich and poor people in common cause. So I believe that social enterprise can increase ‘social capital’, ease the challenge of inflating cost of living and go towards helping ‘level the boats’. However, the challenge of growing to scale makes it hard to see social enterprise being able to wholeheartedly address on a systemic level some of the fundamental measures required to deliver economic justice – higher standards of education, a greater supply of affordable housing, countering tax avoidance and de-risking loan finance. Also, meritocracy is key to enabling economic justice and there are levers way more mainstream and central to public life that enable this to happen, such as the granting and protection of human rights, tax and welfare reform.

V: Seven years ago you founded an urban agriculture initiative in Middlesbrough. More than thousand people has farmed, produced vegetables. At the end of the harvest, there were more than eight thousand people who prepared and shared the meal. What were the motivation and main reasons that people joined the project?

DB: People joined the project since they thought that left-over space in the city should be put to more productive use; informal ways for communities to ‘get together’ should be encouraged to support pride, self-respect and feelings of community; growing food was part of the working class tradition and historic poverty of the place and something that everyone could be good at. There was also a call for the design of a more equitable and sustainable food system for the town, one that granted people greater sovereignty over the supply of food to the town and decreased the scale of food imports.

V:What were the next steps of this initiative, the evolution?

DB: First, I asked many different people in the city whether they would be interested in growing food. Second, I found out which public agencies were teaching cookery to people. Then, I investigated who might be interested in hosting and managing a public meal. With a team of designers, I then produced an initiative in which people could grow food, learn to cook with and then share the harvest. I wanted elements of it to be jubilant and fun, not least since only this kind of thing happens in movies, or Italian hilltop villages, not former steel and chemical manufacturing cities. Also I wanted people to be able to participate in a process that felt like a natural, evolutionary experience. I lined up over eighty organizations, companies and individuals who wanted to be involved and grow food in planters, public parks, school gardens, even small growing pots in car dealerships. I raised finance from public and private organizations for each component part of the process, on the basis of saving them money on delivery of existing services but also the value of investing in worthless land. In Spring 2007, people planted food in small, medium, larger and extra-large containers on over 280 sites in the city. As food became available, people joined cookery classes from trained chefs. In the Summer, the final harvest was cooked and eaten as part of a larger event, curated by artist Bob and Roberta Smith, on the theme of food and art. The city’s new urban farmers cooked and artists exhibited and sold works linked to food. 8000 people attended the event. 1000 had grown food. The event has now been repeated for seven years; and sufficient new interest in horticulture was ‘seeded’ that a new training center has been built in a central park, supported by £10m finance from Government.

V: The People’s Supermarket is also very interesting project. What are the main principles of this food cooperative? Do you believe that the model can be transferred in all urban areas in the world (i.e. in Slovenia)?

DB: The People’s Supermarket is a co-operative grocery shop. Anyone can shop in the store but for payment of £25.00 per year and the donation of four hours volunteer time per month, members of the co-operative can earn a discount on the cost of certain food. This is the operating principle. Ethically, the venture is driven by the will to make healthy food more affordable for people in the city, source food from independent suppliers and maximize efficient waste management – for instance, cooking unsold food and selling it as takeaway meals. The model can be transferred in all urban areas for sure. We adapted a model pioneered by the Park Slope Food Coop in Brooklyn, New York. What needs to be addressed to make it happen is coverage of operating costs, initial stock and systems. The venture requires some employed staff. 80% of start-up costs were paid for by volunteer labor and recycling of materials, with some of the running costs financed by public agencies and private foundations.

DB: Yes - very much so.

V: The concept of time banks as a different mean of volunteer work was developed in the 80s by dr. Edgar Cahn. But the concept is not very popular or successful (yet) – why do you think is so?

DB: Because it is perceived to be a form of volunteering, giving and ‘worthwhile’, these values attract the interest of only a certain number of people, and do not help create a wider cultural or social phenomena. It needs to be positioned as a lifestyle choice and marketed as fulfilling an aspiration, enabling people ‘to be who they want to be’ and maximizing their power.

V: How to convince society and individuals that they can regard time as a currency?

DB: Devise a mobile application to help them manage their involvement and choice.

V: Social entrepreneurship, corporate social responsibility, co-working, crowdfunding, contours of new economies, that are based on benefit for local communities and connecting people, more and more new ideas that are beneficial for society are emerging every day … Are you an optimist?

DB: I am a militant optimist. The future of the world will increasingly be based upon new values but it would be a massive loss if this had to mean a loss of materialism. Material, artifice and fantasy are key values that make life worth living. They allow you to dream; be the person you are not; they generate color and pleasure. The trick is to develop social entrepreneurship, co-working etc in such a way as they appeal to consumers, drink from the same fountain as shopping, fashion, art and expression and become a natural part of people’s everyday lives. To treat them as grey, virtuous religion is to make them utterly unappealing and consign them to the margins. We need to find ways and means by which private enterprise can embrace social values and promote them. As the global economy becomes more and more influenced by the West Coast of America, this is happening in any case, with technology building these values into new products and services available via the internet and mobile. Hipsters the world over are sharing these values in their entrepreneurial ventures. Governments are increasingly demanding from companies that they embrace social values as part of their license to operate. Private enterprise may profit from them in an old school capitalist way. Provided that they don’t lie, that is fine. The more engagement in the values of the new economy the better. We are simply the early adopters.

Technology is at its best when it simplifies, connects and empowers our lives; and while websites like Estates Direct, Rentify and easyProperty (now fundraising through Crowdcube) make markets in component parts of the buying, selling or renting experience, Plentific disrupts the complexity of buying a home by enabling the total process.

That's interesting in many ways. For that which is bundled can be un-bundled. But also the experience of Plentific builds out through the context of mapping, at a time when maps feel like a great place to start for any evolutionary, interactive and informational relationship with the consumer online. Services like Google Maps, Baidu Maps and Citymapper are carrying more and more data and increasingly popular.

Wild Blue is delighted that one of our members has chosen to invest in Plentific. The UK has a large property and mortgage market. The value to users and fee potential of the business is strong. Plentific has clients in West London and residents in the area have fast growth technology experience that investing relationships like this consolidate and grow.

If you're a startup or growth enterprise interested in raising angel finance and you offer value to or have a link with West London, please contact Investment Director Deepali Nangia: deepali@wildbluekc.com.

If you'd like to know more about Wild Blue, please contact David Barrie: david@wildbluekc.com.

August 13, 2014

The great American engineer, industrialist and pioneer of venture capital Ralph Flanders once said, “We cannot float along indefinitely on the enterprise and vision of preceding generations.” We need to invent. We need to renew. And we need to find smart, logical and productive means by which to construct and finance a new prosperity for our world.

This is one inspiration behind Wild Blue Cohort, a new network of private investors that has started up in West London, one of the most prosperous areas in the global city, home to many talented business people and entrepreneurs and the greatest concentration of CEOs and CFOs beyond the pages of the Financial Times.

Kensington & Chelsea, Hammersmith & Fulham and Westminster are great centres of enterprise in London, be it scientific innovations born at the university Imperial College, global brands locally HQ'ed brands, such as Harrods,Virgin Group and L'Oreal, or as the birthplace of lifestyle and consumer empires such as the retailer Cath Kidston and estate agent Foxtons.

However, in recent years, because of an extraordinary rise in the value of property and the globalisation of banking and financial services – hotels, real estate and personal services are big employers in the district of Kensington & Chelsea,for example - the barriers to entry for start-up or growth enterprise in the area have risen dramatically. As a result, the fertile ecology of entrepreneurial inclusion that tends to lead to the growth of business ideas threatens to atrophy.

As independent neighborhood ventures are replaced by global brands, expensive boutiques and over-priced junk-shops, and financial institutions continue to focus upon their capital ratios and remain averse to lending to small and medium-sized enterprises, you have an environment that is no place to start or grow a company. Problem is, as acclaimed urban writer Jane Jacobs once put it, "When a place gets boring, even the rich people leave.”

In 2013, I decided to put in place something that might start to turn the tide. I was born and brought up in Kensington & Chelsea and for over a decade I have founded for-profit and non-profit ventures that have sought to animate, innovate and newly capitalise local economies.

While people fret over the gentrification of global cities and technology is applied increasingly to urban life, it seems important now to look ahead, grasp the personality of cities 'after the storm' and innovate new soft infrastructure for that time - assuming that we'd prefer not to live in places that look or feel like the shopping, dining and entertainment areas of airport terminals, which at times does seem to be where we are headed.

It would also seem worthwhile to embrace the fact that over the last few years, in part because of the rapid progress of places such as Silicon Valley and Cambridge, places associated with technology transfer and its commercialisation, an approach to economic growth has begun to emerge that values clusters of specialist investors who identify with the local, not just the global.

Alongside the advance of global, institutional and venture capital, private 'angel' investment has grown rapidly around the world, with individuals preferring to invest their money within a 50km radius of where they live, tending towards, as one writer has described it, "Instagrams not Hyperloops"

The popularity and efficacy of this move towards local private finance coincides with other business ideas.

Looking at the impact of technology and globalism on employment, Jim Clifton, Chairman and CEO of Gallup, has emphasised the importance to job creation and the direction of regional economies of “tribal leaders...a self-organised, unelected group of talented people”.

Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP Group, has pointed to the value of the local in a global, virtual world and “the huge competitive value that an evocative sense of place can confer on ambitious brands”.

Supported by the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, I have teamed up with local resident and business advisory specialist Deepali Nangia. Deepali is a passionate advocate for business development, entrepreneurship and the use of private wealth for productive, profitable purpose. (She is also exactly the kind of new international resident of London, who wants more from her city than luxury shopping and artisanal chic.)

Deepali and me are now growing a community of people, many who are seasoned investors and entrepreneurs, almost all of whom live in West London, who want to invest in early stage or growth companies that have an existing relationship with the area, or wish to do so in the future.

Founder members of Wild Blue Cohort, our new angel investment network, include experienced angels, individuals who have started up, built and exited several successful enterprises, and many international professionals. They work in banking, fund management, insurance, venture capital, healthcare, retail, technology, biotech, media, marketing and the food industries.

When it comes to investment, members of our network have no sector bias and typically consider early stage and growth capital investment opportunities that offer a minimum potential of 3-5x return on investment in 5-7yrs. They seek opportunities that require up to £1m in debt or equity finance at reasonable valuations, with priority given to enterprises that are eligible for Enterprise Investment Scheme or SEIS tax relief.

On applying to become members of Wild Blue, individuals are required to comply with Financial Services legislation and certify themselves as high net worth individuals or sophisticated investors. They also need to complete a non-disclosure agreement.

Through our network of members, in-house research, direct deal sourcing, referrals from investment groups and our extensive relationships with national and local organizations, Wild Blue identifies entrepreneurs and investment opportunities to promote within the group.

Wild Blue does not offer investment advice but prior to sharing opportunities screens them for several indicators, including their local value: perhaps the entrepreneur is resident in the area, the venture operates in it or, with an injection of capital and know-how, it might grow its market and create new employment for the area.

In Spring 2014, we ran our first presentation event. Seven firms pitched. One won investment from a member of Wild Blue. A second deal is close to term sheet. We have new pitch events slated to take place in September and December 2014, as well as February 2015 and our membership is growing fast, an average of one new member per week.

Growth economies need to encourage imaginative and progressive entrepreneurs to come up with new ideas for successful enterprise.

Angel investors are a good source of finance and know-how for entrepreneurs who have exhausted their first major round of funding – normally themselves – and offer capital appreciation in return for high-risk, relatively illiquid, direct investment securities.

As a successful, San Francisco-based veteran financial intermediary once wrote, “When entrepreneurs can raise money, they become credible.”

Similarly, when cities foster new communities of private investor and find new ways to apply their wealth and talent to local business, they sow the seeds for a new generation of prosperity and vitality - and they do it in a place that matters to all people, whether rich or poor, a place close to home.

If you have a business that you would like members of Wild Blue to consider, please contact deepali@wildbluekc.com. If you would like to become a member or have another enquiry, write to me: david@wildbluekc.com.